Butterflies and Roses

Two posts in two days? I'm getting carried away with all my The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge and also the Pretty Pink Posh Watercolour Blog Hop. If you haven't been joining in with the former, you have lots of time still, but with the former, you have until Monday at 11:55pm PST (which I think is Pacific Standard Time!). The cards that are there from the design team are truly inspirational, and lead into even more inspirational cards from Joe Public - I had no idea there were so many crafters and water colourists out there.

 

I started off my card with just a blank square of water colour card stock and stamped and embossed a rose and some butterflies using my free Clearly Besotted stamp set from Simply Cards and Papercraft (issue 134). I then got busy with my Spectrum Aquas using the floral range (this is the one I use most often!). This was the result:

I liked the rose and the butterflies but wasn't happy with the background, so inspired by Debby Hughes' post using tags, I got out my CB rounded tag die and cut out the rose and the big butterfly, then fussy cut out the smaller butterflies. I found some previously die cut rectangles in my scraps box, got a couple of card blanks, one Kraft, the other white and with a bit of tape adhered the rectangles to the cards, then with some fun foam, the rose and butterfly tags on top. Some twine and then another butterfly set them off. I had to cut the cards down a bit as the rectangles didn't fit so well with the size they were, so using my WRMK Envelope Punch board, I made some new envelopes for them. I loved that when the cardstock went through my die cutting machine it went from textured to smooth. A different touch.

[Supplies: Spectrum Aquas Floral; Versa Mark Ink; WOW! Embossing Powder Bright White; Simply Cards and Papercraft Issue 133; Baker's Twine - Joe and Flo; Bazzill Paper] 

I've another butterfly card I made earlier in the week that I'd like to share because the challenge at Addicted to CAS is butterfly:

 
[Supplies: Memento Tuxedo Black; CD Metallic Pencils; Wink of Stella]

Again using my CB freebies, these are simply stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with Caran D'Ache metallic pencils, with some Wink of Stella on top. Very very simple.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have time to do some colouring and join in with the blog hop :)

April Showers

They keep talking about a heat wave, but it's avoiding West Yorkshire at the moment, so with the grey weather in mind I decided to try the challenge at Addicted to CAS - Code word Showers.

The card top is a piece of water colour card die cut from the Memory Box stitched rectangles with the images stamped in Ranger Archival Ink. I used the bicycle from Clearly Besotted's Good Times set (the first thing I purchased from them and it's still my favourite!) and the umbrella from the Mama Elephant Up and Away set. I then added some colour using my Prismallo Aquarelles, and some rain dashes (ME Up and Away) in Memento London Fog. The sentiment (also ME Up and Away) is in Versa Magic Night Sky rather than my usual tuxedo black for a change!

Been a long week without much crafting, and it's funny how frustrated you can get without a bit of 'me' time, so I was grateful for baby's long nap this morning.

Thanks for reading! It's nearly the weekend again and hopefully it will be a bit brighter up north :)

PS Apologies for the not so great picture. I need to work out a better set up in my tiny craft space and also get a decent camera!